Democracy

We are told horror stories of the soviet bloc and how there were no free elections. An illustration of this is an anecdote: At the end of the II World War in the Yalta Conference President Roosevelt said to Stalin: " I want the elections in Poland to be beyond question, like Cesar's wife. I did not know Cesar's wife, but she was believed to have been pure." And then Stalin replied: "I was told so about Cesar's wife, but in fact she had certain sins." [Poland in the 20th century, M.K. Dziewanowski 1977]

Well as Stalin new the elections in Poland had their sins, even though they were much purer than in the other communistic countries. In these countries as well as before, people fought for free elections. Free elections ment that anybody could be on ballot and no one was without just cause disenfranchised. Also the candidates must have equal opportunities. But what I want to ask is that is this sufficient and why we want to have democracy?

Democracy may be seen as a way of giving the people the power. As the constitution of Finland states: "The powers of the State in Finland are vested in the people, who are represented by the Parliament." [Unofficial translation by the Ministry of Justice of Finland]. But why is this? Is it just because everyone wants power? If this is the reason, then I find it quite strange. Greed does not justify anything.

But then again we should recall how the totalitarian states and dictatorships have been criticized. In such states creativity has been destroyed, science and scholarship is discouraged, thinking is punishable and stating an opinion (which is against the governments views) is punishable. Why then is the opinion of the government not sufficient. In the communistic states the government and party was everything. The idea was that in order to achieve a goal (such as socialism or communism) a government had the right and actually the responsibility to oppose all opponents of this plan. And this is what governments do this very day also in the west, even though in a much less cruel and violent way.

The problem of allowing the government to monopolize all thinking, is that we waste the enormous intellectual and cultural capital in the minds of the public.  This is also a problem in countries or organisations wich promote democratical principles but don't listen to the public outside elections or don't inform people. People need knowledge to make wise choices and to stimulate their thinking. Also the government needs people expressing their opinions, experiences and knowledge. This is because otherwise great ideas will be lost.

The government consisting of only a small active proportion of the public will never be able to generate all the ideas and improvements that a nation as a whole can create. This also connects the public to the shared goal of improving the world, science and life.

I believe that this kind of genuine interaction between the public and the government can only be achieved by deliberative policy making based on communication and an open decision making process. The public should be given an opportunity to hear all the aspects of a certain decision. They should also be let to tell their opinion of the matter. This communication then should have a genuine impact on the functioning of the society.

In university politics this means that students, faculty and professors regularly discuss with each others how the university, teaching and reasearch should be developed. These discussions leed to new ideas and reasearch directions. As a whole the university becomes more innovative and competitive. More efficient leadership is thus not achieved by centralizing power but by giving an organization that is close to its members. So democracy is not a matter of power but a matter of using the intellectual captial of a sociey well.